Westfarrow Island

by Paul A. Barra

  We’ll be heading over to Saratoga shortly. That thought tenses my stomach too. None of us knows how Francine will respond to actual racing, if she’s got what the racing fraternity calls heart. We’re not really sure how fast she can run compared to others, or what class to race her in. I know we’ll keep her out of claiming races, even the expensive ones, because I am certain that Jack, or one of his reps, will claim her without thinking twice. We’re trying one of a pretty good class of maiden races for fillies and mares first thing, and depending how she does there, we’ll work out the next step. God knows, what if she is stakes material?

  I daydream of that possibility for a while, happy enough not to be worrying about Tony’s work, Jack’s lack of a moral compass, or Jesse’s future. I reach over and touch Tony’s face. My eyes are closed but I can feel him smiling.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Three days later, Tagliabue’s shoulder swelling had eased and his cuts had healed. He was off all pain medications. Agnes Ann went back to the racehorse training facility on Heal Eddy before they found time to visit Polly and the old lobsterman. Tagliabue knew he had to resolve the boarding arrangements for Joshua’s dog. Tom Sharkey surely must have spent money on dog food that he could ill afford to spend. Accepting help from a neighbor was one thing; leaving the beast with an old man for five days now was something else. He hated burdening the man.

  Polly seemed happy enough to be living with Tom Sharkey, but Tagliabue wasn’t certain he could tell if the dog was happy or not. His face always looked the same to him and he wasn’t a face-licker type of pet.

  In Sharkey’s musty two-room apartment on the first morning Tagliabue was out and about since the beating in the alley, the old lobsterman and the little animal looked as if they’d been living together for years. Sharkey groaned under his breath as he knelt down to feed Polly.

  “He been a lot of trouble for you, Tom?”

  Sharkey looked up sharply from filling Polly’s bowl. “No, no. He’s not been a bit of bother, Anthony.”

  “Are you putting canned dog food in with that dry stuff?”

  “Well, ah, the poor wee lad was looking a mite peaked, y’know. He enjoys a bit of meat.”

  “You’ve spoiled him, you salty old bastard. He won’t eat plain Pedigree when I feed him next time.”

  “Well, er, I don’t mind feeding him, Anthony. I know yer a busy man.”

  Tagliabue sat down carefully on one of the mismatched chairs at the card table in Sharkey’s kitchen area. Sharkey was busy mixing the feed and wouldn’t look at him. He likes the company, Tagliabue thought. He doesn’t want the dog to leave.

  He said softly: “Where does Polly sleep, Tom Sharkey?”

  Sharkey’s ears reddened. He spoke quietly: “On the cot with me.”

  “You good enough to walk him?”

  The old man looked up with a glisten of hope in his eyes.

  “Oh, aye,” he said. “No problem atall. He follows me on the sidewalk when I go to the Paki’s for me paper in the morning and we go down to the river park in the afternoon for a run. There’s some other doggies down there usually. He’s not a problem. Not atall.”

  “It was good of you to take him home for me when I got banged up, Tom. I’m indebted to you for that kindness.”

  “I were happy to do it, Anthony. Truth to tell, this wee beastie brightened up this old place when he came. Acted like he’d lived here all his life.”

  Sharkey laughed out a crackle and patted Polly’s head. The dog flicked his tail once but kept on eating. “He’s well-trained, don’t you know, never once shat on the floor or anything and he ain’t noisy or, er, demanding either. Better than having a wife around.” He smiled a toothless grin at that.

  Tom Sharkey had been widowed since Celeste was taken by the flu in the winter of 1988. They’d had no children. The widower lived a solitary life, Tagliabue knew. When he visited with coffee and jelly doughnuts once in a while, or with a bottle of Irish whiskey on an evening, the old man talked a lot. Even then, when he had rare company, he never turned off the television. He might mute it or turn the volume down when someone visited, but the set was never off. Now, Tagliabue noted, the TV was dark. Could this ugly little dog be lifting a long depression from an old man?

  “Tom, you’d be doing me a big favor if you could look after the dog for a while. Joshua never took him on the boat and I’m afraid he may not realize he can’t step overboard when we’re underway.”

  “I can do that, Anthony. Be happy to.” Sharkey nodded his head three times, quickly. “Yessir. Be happy to.”

  “Well, okay. Here’s the deal. I’m going to give you $500 for his care. You’ll need to take him to the vet to see if he needs any shots or anything, and you have to buy him food. You let me know when you need more.”

  Sharkey started to protest but Tagliabue held up a hand: “I’m a rich man. Don’t worry about the money.”

  Tom Sharkey laughed. His eyes watered and he looked away. Tagliabue put a sheaf of twenties on the table, patted the old man on the shoulder and left. Polly continued to eat with snuffles and crunches as Tagliabue closed the apartment door behind him. Breathing easier, he walked down to Cronk’s. He was feeling much better.

  He scrubbed down Maven but tired in an hour. He was sitting in the shade puffing a little when Detective Johnny Coleman drove up and parked his green county car at the head of the pier. He tramped down to Maven with his head forward.

  “Permission to come aboard?”

  Tagliabue nodded.

  “You allowed to work up a sweat already?”

  “Well, it didn’t take long.”

  “Even so . . . you’re still in recovery mode, ain’t you?”

  “I’m feeling pretty good. Being outdoors again has to help.”

  “Yeah, you’re probly right.”

  Tagliabue reached into a small cooler and took out two bottles of water. He handed one to Coleman.

  “Anything new?”

  “Matter of fact. We arrested a guy name of Henry Sanders. Charged him with assault and battery against one Anthony Tagliabue.”

  “Really? How’d you finger him?”

  “He was drinking with some cronies down at Adolph’s, showed off a new gun. Bartender called the city PD. Nervous. It was a new, long Glock. His prints are on the lumber you got hit with.”

  Opening his satchel, the cop took out a big baggie with a long square semiautomatic inside: “You identify this gun?”

  He took a pull on the water as Tagliabue examined the weapon in the bag before taking a folded paper from his wallet. “It’s mine,” he said, “the serial number’s on my permit.” He handed the permit and the gun to Coleman.

  “Why you got a permit? You don’t need one in Maine.”

  “I’m not always in Maine.”

  “No?”

  It seemed to Tagliabue that the sheriff’s detective wanted to ask more questions. He drank water, looked at the bottle on his lap and up at Tagliabue out of the top of his eyes, his forehead wrinkled. He shook his head. He slipped the bagged Glock back in his briefcase.

  “You can get this back as soon as we arraign Sanders. He’s gonna rat out his partner pretty soon, I’m guessing. Plead out. There won’t be no trial.”

  Tagliabue said nothing. The men shook hands and the cop left. As he watched Coleman’s Chev drive off, Tagliabue thought about Henry “Hank” Sanders, a tough guy with meaty hands and an incipient paunch, thinning hair, and a red complexion. Sanders was divorced from his child bride at least ten years now, he thought, ten years of a steady slide down the slippery slope of malaise with a dead end at the bottom. He lived on the dole, doing odd jobs now and then with his best pal, Georgie Peterson, a bayman who owned a leaky clam boat and who worked marginally more often than Hank Sanders did. Peterson was a wiry type whose bony wrists always seemed to be longer than his shirtsleeves. Sanders and Peterson were the kind of derelicts who would mug a nun for fifty bucks.

  He flexed his fists and flung h
is arms down, figured he’d be ready for action by the time he located Peterson. He called Timmy O’Brien at the Pelham East and asked him to pass the word that he was hunting for Peterson. Then he strolled into town and ate a steak and fries at the Bath Roadhouse.

  That night his phone dinged with a text message from his cousin Maurizio: “Look for clam diggers at Jasper’s early Tuesday.” He slept late, exercised on the third floor, and took a long, hot shower. After lunch he walked along the river for an hour and went to bed while it was still light out. When the alarm woke him at three Tuesday morning he felt pretty limber. He drove down to the bay and parked where he could see Jasper English’s establishment, Sagadahoc Seafood Wholesale. English was a crusty businessman with a certain tainted reputation. The clammers and lobstermen who sold their catch to him knew well to be alert as he was weighing and counting. If one of the hard-cut baymen with their callused hands and steeled muscles protested when he caught him at some venal act of thievery, English was quick to grovel and laugh off the complaint—and to quickly amend the tally on the tags he handed them. The baymen accepted payment only in cash and only at the time they brought their catch to him. Tagliabue was amazed that he would try to steal from men who could probably snap his stringy neck, but he’d been working his wily ways for years, maybe as long as three decades, according to some of the old baymen who hung around the docks. He thought Jasper English was the slime of the earth.

  English also occasionally managed projects that evaded the fishery laws. He recruited the baymen he knew needed money and were willing to engage in some practice that was harmful to their very livelihood in exchange for some immediate gain. If clam diggers were out at night, that meant some clam farmer wanted a catch of illegally small littlenecks to stock his holdings. Or maybe some wealthy summer visitor wanted sweet undersized bivalves for a lawn party. Either way, the men raking them were threatening the natural process of growth. The state didn’t like anyone taking shellfish before they were old enough to spawn. The night diggers had to complete their illegal transactions before the Maine fish and game wardens came on duty at eight.

  Tagliabue sat in the silence, windows open to the brisk morning air that carried the odor of mud flats. An hour before false dawn, a light went on in one window of Jasper’s fish house. Fifteen minutes later, Tagliabue heard the sound of an outboard motor at low speed. A flat-bottomed open boat eased alongside Jasper’s pier and tied up. Three figures offloaded wire baskets of clams and carried them to the fish house. No one talked.

  The men were still silent as Tagliabue walked in on them. Jasper English was handing out cash. He jumped when he saw Tagliabue and that made the three other men turn toward him, their eyes opening in surprise. One was the tall thin form of Georgie Peterson.

  “Good morning, boys,” Tagliabue said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  English was the first to find his voice.

  “Jesus God, Anthony,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “You bring fish and game?”

  Rather than answer, Tagliabue pulled his cell out of his pocket and snapped pictures of the four and their baskets of illegal shellfish as he walked toward them.

  “You’ll be hearing from them soon enough, scumbag. Right now I’m here to talk with Georgie.”

  Peterson turned to run but his rubber boots slowed him. Tagliabue snagged him by the back of his neck and slung him to the wet floor. He put a foot on Peterson’s neck.

  “Don’t any of you try to leave while Georgie and I have a little conversation.”

  He hauled Peterson to his feet and pushed him ahead of him out to the pier. In the fresh air, away from the smell of water-softened wood and burlap and clams, he let Peterson go.

  “It ain’t but a misdemeanor, Anthony. We each only got two bushels.”

  “I’m not interested in your illegal catch, Georgie.”

  His eyes bored in to Peterson’s. He moved closer, spoke in a low voice with the steel of menace hardening every word: “I’m itching to knock out a few of your rotten teeth and break a few of your bones. Don’t tempt me.”

  Peterson’s face was pale in the early light. He threw up his hands and backed to the edge of the pier.

  “Don’t hit me, Anthony. I can’t afford to get broke up. I gotta work.”

  “You didn’t mind breaking me up last week.”

  “It was Hank kicked you. We was only supposed to work you over some, I swear. Look here, we was only supposed to bang you around, no hits to the face. That little dog pissed Hank off with his yipping and snapping. He’s the one kicked you when you was down. I swear, Anthony. I hardly even hurt you. Just banged you on your arms and such, I swear.”

  He was talking rapidly, his eyes blinking like a signal lamp, his nose running into the sweat dripping down his face. Tagliabue thought he might jump in the water if he got any closer. He spoke sharply.

  “Be quiet!”

  Peterson’s mouth snapped shut. His hands fluttered down to his sides. He sniffed, then closed his eyes as if waiting for the inevitable. A soft whine dribbled from his mouth. Tagliabue took a step backward. He spoke softly.

  “Who sent you to work me over, Georgie?”

  Peterson’s eyes snapped open and he broke the suction of his lips. He licked them when he saw Tagliabue had stepped away.

  “The Magpie. He give us a buck apiece and said to send you a message.”

  “He say what kind of message?”

  “No. He didn’t say nothing else and we didn’t ask. He wanted us to use our fists but Hank said no fucking way. Not big Anthony. We use lumber or nothing doing. We needed the money, I swear.”

  “Go back in the fish house and stay there, Georgie. I’ll be waiting outside.”

  He sent the photos of the clam diggers and their catch to Johnny Coleman. When he saw the time on his phone he realized that the sheriff’s detective would probably still be asleep. He called him. The man sounded surprisingly alert.

  “Can you keep Peterson there, Tagliabue?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good. Won’t be long. I’ll call a coupla deputies down right away.”

  He rested with his hip on Jasper English’s van. Some conversation among the four men in the fish house buzzed out but Tagliabue could not understand what they were saying. Otherwise, the new morning was quiet until two county cars rolled up. By the time deputies arrested Peterson, a state fish and game car arrived and two rangers confiscated the illegal shellfish and issued tickets. As they were leaving, Detective Coleman drove up. He had two cups of steaming coffee. He and Tagliabue walked the empty streets to the city pier. The benches were wet from dew so the two men stood in the gray light of dawn each with a foot on the railing that lined the edge of the dock. A trio of gulls took wing from the calm surface of the bay and went off searching for food. The tide was beginning to fill the basin, covering the mudflats like snow covers a city street. The morning mist was lifting.

  “The tourists’ll be happy having breakfast al fresco today,” Coleman said.

  Tagliabue looked at him in mild surprise but decided not to comment on his use of language. He told him what he’d learned from Georgie Peterson.

  “Marv Harris, huh? We ain’t seen him around for a while now. What do you think his game is?”

  “I don’t know. Georgie said he hired him and Hank Sanders to warn me off. It must be somehow connected to the damage to my boat and the death of Joshua.”

  “Maybe. I just don’t see the motive.”

  “Well, if I learn anything, I’ll let you know, Detective.”

  “Yeah, you do that. Meanwhile I’ll sweat these two mutts and see if I can learn anything myself.”

  Tagliabue drove down to the boatyard where he found Tom Cronk already in his office, having a cruller with his morning joe. He made arrangements to have the hole in Maven repaired permanently. On the way home, he remembered that he hadn’t been to the post office in nearly a week. A familiar certified mail notice was waiting in his box.

  CHAPT
ER TWELVE

  Anthony Tagliabue locked himself in his apartment house and opened the tan polymer package the postmaster had given him in exchange for the certified notice. Inside were a New York driver’s license issued to one Francis Fabris of the Bronx whose photograph looked suspiciously like Tagliabue and a credit card in the same name. It was the first time Giselle had sent him false ID material. When he read through the assignment he realized his life was about to become complicated.

  He read it again. Going to the basement, he burned the papers in the incinerator, locked the card and license in the safe concreted and bolted to the floor, and placed the envelope in a file drawer with the others he had received over the past thirty months. It was the thirteenth one.

  On the way to Chad’s Deli, he mailed the return postcard to The Clemson Project. He picked up Maurizio when his cousin got off work at two P.M. They lunched on an outside table at The Bath Oyster House. Over clams in coconut stock and french bread, he told Maurizio what he wanted him to do. His cousin listened, asked a few questions, confirmed times, and agreed to the plan. He suspected that Anthony had some secretive side work, so he didn’t ask what Anthony was up to. A week at the Saratoga race meeting was enough for him.

  “I got a friend works at Belmont,” Maurizio said as he mopped up sauce and scallions with crusts of bread. “He knows all them horses. I’m gonna make me some money this vacation.”

  He smiled broadly. Tagliabue laughed at his optimism.

  “Just remember, Maury,” he said. “Travel, room, and board go on my card, even if you’re treating someone. Rent a car from Enterprise and leave it at the Retinue Apartment Hotel with key under the mat. You can take cabs or Uber after that. Okay?”

  “Right, cuz. You need a paper trail.”

  “Roger that. You ain’t as dumb as you look.”

  “Hey, don’t mock the way I talk, Anthony.”